#first zagreus???? melinöe????

[sweateroverlord]

baaaaaeeeebieeeee why don't you come ooooooooveeeer Red Wine Supernooooooovaaa Falling into meeeeeeee

(Okay y'all, let's pick it up now!)

[teamfortresstwo]

God Zagreus really is the wing man #1 .

[fated-normal-767]

Godddd I bet Zagreus and Melinöe would actually kinda fucking hate eachother . Not even in a necessarily fun siblings way like I could see them killing eachother or something . Speaking of which, who do you think would win in a fight? I think they’d both be pretty evenly matched but I’d give the edge to Melinöe if we’re counting upgrades via mirror of the night / the tarot(?) but if not then Zagreus might be able to win given our reliance on being able to replenish our uh. Magic thingies in the second game .

I think melinöe would win because Zagreus seems to have the belief that (in the first game) even though he doesn’t really know most of the gods they’re family so he can trust them and work with them, so even if he didn’t like what melinöe was saying or her morals he’d still try to convince her. and she wouldn’t do that.

[scriptores]

𝐏𝐑𝐎𝐅𝐈𝐋𝐄 : melinöe , goddess of ghosts & nightmares

overview: loosely based on the orphic myths, melinöe is a goddess of ghosts, nightmares & madness. she is known as the formless one for her shapeshifting abilities, the propitiated one by those who pray she does not visit them at night with her train of revengeful ghosts, and also as a crossroads deity, capable of infiltrating any realm so long as the sun is down. she is the daughter of hades & persephone, stolen at birth, and who remains estranged after discovering this. her domain is in the river of wailing, where she offers an alternative option to the souls who were not given proper burial, endured a violent death, and/or did not have the toll to pay the ferryman. rather than spend the hundred years wandering in the banks, they're given the chance to join her retinue in a nightly exodus to haunt in her name. melinöe herself often pays personal visits to the sleeping, invading and manipulating the dreams laid out by morpheus by taking the shape of their worst nightmares.

VERSES.

✧ main : going off the greek myths here, but can be applied to various settings & fantasy crossovers. she can be the entity associated with whatever boogeyman or nightmare figure applies. the background here is that melinöe was born formless (thus difficult to identify), so echidna stole her away to raise as her own, shaped her into the frightful and formidable deity she is currently, and used her as a force against house hades during the gigantomachy. after discovering that she wasn't echidna's daughter (default is that hekate unearthed this), she turned against the gigantes, but remained estranged to house hades all the same. she prefers her solitude and being spooky, so will avoid anything that may compromise that.

✧ supergiant's hades : same background here applies until i get more info on what they plan to do with mel's background, but this is the primary verse where i will play around with mel being more anti-heroine skewed. she was the one who unleashed kronus, the titan of time, and her grandfather, who took hades hostage. after discovering her true parentage, she begrudgingly agrees to train with hekate and save her father (as a debt she feels she owes, not out of love). [alt. adjacent verse] slaying the titan of time ultimately opens up some crossover plots where she's the new time anchor capable of traveling across timelines in the multiverse.

✧ dragon age : my favorite verse for her !! it writes itself besties !! she's the formless one (aka the last surviving forbidden one after da:i), which i'm establishing to be a fear demon, and also the nightmare demon in inquisition who commands the demons in alignment with corypheus. (it's good food she needs no other reason). she was once a spirit of hope who absorbed the fears of others, but in time this corrupted her and turned her into the first fear demon, essentially a mirror of whatever horror plagues the collective. at this time she's a nightmare demon who primarily embodies with the blight because that's the most prevalent existential dread, but being the formless one means she can evolve to encapsulate something else.

✧ modern : this is my playdough verse for non-fantasy settings, used more for modern horror stories. melinöe is still a goddess of ghosts and nightmares, but she will have fun being a living nightmare, meaning she can also be whomever in a creepy town or hotel or shop who seems normal during a first encounter, but is not really there, and then the haunting horrors will persist.

DOSSIER.

name. melinöe epithets. the formless one, phantom queen, dark-mind, propitiation-minded pronouns. she/her age. immortal pantheon. hellenistic polytheism etymology. chthonic goddess sexuality. pansexual alignment. chaotic evil / neutral

relations. hades (father), persephone (mother), echidna (mother), zagreus (@oddyseas, brother), makaria (sister), bianca di angelo ( @infernocte, sister), aya akazwa (@serenaderain, sister), hekate (matron), morpheus (🔪)

height. 5'7" build. she will usually present herself as a nebulous shadow with only her eyes as a discernible feature, but her base form is lithe and toned. she has a white phantom forearm (left) that she keeps gloved. it's very bright, the only heavenly thing about her, but it is also translucent and exposes her ethereal skeleton. hair. ghostly white, typically short and slicked in streaks down her skull, but can sometimes be long and floating around chaotically, if the horror calls for it. eyes. varies. they could be cloudy grey and rotted, black like that chair in in the corner of your room when the lights are off, yellow like spider guts, or burning pits distinguishing markers. dogs barking at night, radio silence, a sudden drop in temperature, a dark face in the back of your eyelids, the sound of mourning criesscents. burning sage, saffron, grave dirt, the a&f store? idk whatever u loathe

abilities / skillset. * shape-shfting. less focused on concrete shapes than obscure and terrifying figures; however, this ability is also very much reflective of her environment and the person she is haunting. if their worst nightmare involves another person, she will embody that shape.

* dimensional travel. a very stealthy ghoul! there is nowhere you can hide if it's night and you are sleeping without protection. that's the in miss boogey woman needs to find you. however, she can also travel the axis mundi aka "the crossroads" between realms in the greek pantheon without restrictions and take others through those roads so long as they accompany her throughout. otherwise, they could get stuck in limbo there. (in her alt. sg hades verse she'll ultimately be able to travel the multiverse this way)

* possession. again, without protective measures or if someone is frightened enough to slip past the defense of their will, she and/or one of her ghosts can possess them and live within the confines of their mind like a parasite.

* combat skills. while stunning or deceiving enemies through visions and torturous encounters is her go-to method, melinöe is also a very capable fighter. you can consider her more of a rogue. she's a dual wielder and her weapons are usually a pair of crescent shaped sickles.

* magic phantom arm. allows her to shoot blasts of burning ectoplasm and cast simple entropy spells. it'll usually be gloved which dampens the effect, but when it isn't, and given enough time to boot it, she can nuke something. restrictions. * sensitivity to sunlight. she is incapable of being in the sun without extensive damage. it won't kill her, but she will be in agony and incapacitated, and hella pissed if she escapes. rooms with bright lights are also very annoying, she'll find a way to shut them off or dim them to scare someone, but also for her own comfort.

* protective tokens & practices. salt rings or salt along thresholds will keep her and her ghosts barred from entering a home, but melinöe may still be able to sneak in from a sleeping mind within that home, unless you have protective bells that will stir when she's near and wake them before she's found her way through. protective crystals and sage may also keep her from finding someone or dampen/cleanse her influence, but won't stop her from entering a room.

* combat. without her abilities at her disposal, she's more vulnerable to being overcome in combat. she won't be easy to take down, as she is fast and very precise, but in terms of the damage that she can take before being subdued, this is low and her weakest point.

themes. paint it black, ciara / boogie woogie wu, insane clown posse / bury a friend, billie eilish / mercy street, fever ray

[teamfortresstwo]

OKAY SO BASICALLY . I’m not sure how caught up you are on Hades lore but this AU is of that game . There are two circumstances in which I’m thinking about making this au take place . One is more self indulgent and interesting to me specifically, while the other route is more canon compliant (and therefore also has best girl Melinöe in it which is basically the only reason this strand exists)

So, the main premise of this au is that Zagreus ascended to full godhood some time before the second game and breaks his father out of his shackles, demanding he help fight the titan. Hades is reluctant but eventually agrees, with Zagreus being his patron god and helping him fight. He uses his shackles as his main weapon, though he still has abilities from the first game like boiling blood and the vases . (Which Zagreus breaks instantly if he’s called upon, so enemies don’t necessarily have to break them to be caught.)

Now in the first more self indulgent route, there is sooo much background info I need to give since it’s a product of a month’s worth of daydreaming that got a bit away from me . It’s based off a fic in which Hades basically curses Zagreus so that each time he dies, he also forgets a little bit of his life, thereby making death affect him in ways it wouldn’t have otherwise. Zagreus eventually finds out about this and in a fit of anger, ascends to his godly status, reigning vengeance upon the underworld until finally faking his death and practically fracturing his domain to avoid anyone picking up on his power. This means in this version of events he’s a lot weaker than he otherwise would’ve been, and also his relationship with Hades is a lot worse off . It also means he has to act a little bit ooc unfortunately 😔😔. But luckily it also means he wouldn’t be at the house at the time that Chronos comes along so he isn’t frozen in time and can come and save some people.

For the more canon complaint route, It’s practically just the second game’s plot except Zagreus and Hades are fighting wretches as well. Though, I think the actual way I’m going to play it is a sort of mishmash of the two where Zagreus does have his memory fucked with (because it lives rent free in my head and if I don’t give him a semi happy ending in that au I’ll hurt someone) but after finding out, he manages to get to the surface. He doesn’t tell his mother about what happened, and Melinöe is still born, but he is still weary and distant from the house, which is why he’s still not there. This would mean Zagreus is a lot more powerful though on account of cultivating his domain, so I imagine he’d have a lot of stuff he’s taking care of, and helping out his father only when his call charges up like in game. (I don’t think Hades would stay at a camp on account of being too conspicuous and practically attracting the wretched. Chronos is hunting him too precisely.)

He’d probably also help out Melinöe with her mission, taking on a role like Artemis or Nemesis . Although, I do wanna nerf him a bit maybe, just because thinking about him figuring out how to survive in this Chronos-ravaged world is half the fun to me . Like I like thinking about him learning how to use the various traps to his advantage, specifically maybe finding a way to use the Erebus chambers’ supply of onions as a food supply or using the gears Chronos uses to keep his realm turning as a means of transportation and stuff like that which I wouldn’t be able to do if he could just teleport around . (That and the main point of this au was admittedly ‘what if Hades and Zagreus were forced to hang out in the second game but their relationship is inexplicably as bad as the start of that first.)

What if I called it the blood donor au